So when should a publisher ditch d20 and develop their own system?

[woodelf]

As opposed to the low fantasy heavily inherent in the Citybooks?

Even without game stats, the City Books include a number of implicit and explicit assumptions in my opinion.

Very few demi-humans. Very little magic. Very little in terms of magic items. Very little in terms of planar travel, etc...

As to assumptions, you maybe want to reread them. Biggest problem incorporating CityBooks into "standard" D&D settings? The CityBooks had a bigger variety, and greater incidence of non-humans. As for the level of magic--it was, if anything, more ubiquitous than in standard D&D, if of generally lower power. Lots of characters with minor magical abilities (that there really was no by-the-book way to do in those days). Like the orcish tattoo artists. And there was certainly more planar travel in the CityBooks settings than i encountered in the D&D settings of the day. Like an inn that wandered the planes.

Yes, tehre are always setting assumptions. But, really, they were all over the map. Some of the individual establishments were much more magical than the D&D rules assumptions, others were much less. Likewise for other general setting assumptions (like incidence of non-humans). With lots of authors, and lots of ideas, i never really got a consistent set of setting assumptions. And some of the books were, overall, considerably lower or higher fantasy than others, too. Only place they seemed consistently in one direction, was fewer magic items than D&D assumed. But that's trivially adjusted (unlike the degree of inherent magical ability, or races of NPCs, frex)--just give the NPCs some magic items.

I owe you an apology--i was curious, so i pulled out my CityBooks, and actually did some counts. For the most spart, you are right: not a lot of non-humans. My recollections were colored, i suspect, by the fact that most of my favorite locations (and the ones i've used must recently, as indicated by the bookmark stickies), are in CityBooks V and VII. When i actually do counts of detailed characters, i come up with:

CityBook I:

• Human: 65
• Demi-human, humanoid (dwarves, goblins, etc.): 6
• Other (dogs, demons, were-raccoons, terrkot, llurkhan, other really-outside-the-norm-for-PCs): 5

CityBook III:

• Human: 60
• Demi-human: 7
• Other: 6

CityBook V:

• Human: 3
• Demi-human: 14
• Other: 38

CityBook VII:

• Human: 54
• Demi-human: 13
• Other: 6

So, in part i was particularly influenced by which ones i used the most--but not entirely. Because i'd say i actually used V, I, & VII, the most, in that order. Also, the moderate numbers (actually, large numbers in V) of really out-there characters--things that wouldn't even be considered viable PCs in most "normal" games--is part of what makes me think of them as more-diverse, not less-, than "standard" D&D. And even within the "demi-human" category as i counted them above, at least half of those are dwelfs, goblins, orcs, centaurs, and other things that are not part of the standard racial repertoire. So, yes, the CityBooks are pretty light on elves, dwarves, halflings, half-elves, and gnomes (i didn't see a single gnome in the 4 books i counted), but not all that light on non-humans in general.

Then again, even now that i look at the actual numbers, those translate to, respectively, 14%, 17%, 95%, 26% for the 4 i bothered counting. Is even CityBook I all that lower in non-human chars than D&D assumptions? Doing a quick spot-check of a couple chapters of City of Greyhawk, i come up with 18/6/2, or 31% [i don't feel like counting all the chars in the entire book]. That's not that far off from the overall average of the 4 CityBooks i counted (34%). I know my homebrew settings have always been something like 20% human, or less--but the D&D rulebooks always seemed to imply more like 75-80% human among civilized folks. At least, that was always my impression.

 

[jdrakeh]

Anyhow, the question is...Is it a good move for a publisher to ditch d20 and develop their own system?

Maybe.

And if so, when?

When the d20 material stops generating enough profit to keep you in the black.

 

[The Shaman]

Ulitmately this is what led me to come up with a new strategy for the Freeport re-launch. The Pirate's Guide to Freeport is a 256-page hardback detailing the City of Adventure and containing no game stats for any system. We are then publishing a series of companion books that give rules info and stats for many different systems. First on deck are the True20 Freeport Companion and the d20 Freeport Companion, but there will be others as well. This should allow us to broaden Freeport's appeal to fans of fantasy gaming in general, while providing good support for the city's original fanbase as well.

Sounds like the Chaosium Thieves' World boxed set - two books (the players' guide and the game master's guide) describing life in Sanctuary, and one book with stats blocks and conversion notes for AD&D, Adventures in Fantasy, Chivalry and Sorcery, Dragonquest, D&D, The Fantasy Trip, Runequest, Traveller, and Tunnels and Trolls.

Seems like a great idea to me.

 

[The Shaman]

Anyhow, the question is...Is it a good move for a publisher to ditch d20 and develop their own system? And if so, when?

Whether it's a "good move" or not depends on the publisher's goals. If the goal is to move enough product to make publishing games a means of feeding one's family and keeping the electricity on, then as Chris Pramas notes upthread, there is an event horizon that publisher's must be prepared to cross with respect to the singularity that is d20. If the goal is to challenge on the field of ideas rather than in the trenches of the marketplace, then a publisher is free to try any damn fool thing she likes, and all the more power to her for doing so.

As far as "when," I would say that it's when d20 doesn't capture the feel or style of play that the designer wants to achieve. D20 doesn't do everything well. Traveller20 comes to mind: Part of the feel of Traveller is the relative lack of mechanical advancement for characters after chargen - characters are veterans with skills and abilities which are largely "set" once chargen is complete, usually picking up a few skill levels (a process which may take years in-game) at most in the course of their adventuring careers. (In fact a character's abilities may be just as likely to decline due to aging as the game progresses.)

This isn't a style of play that d20 does well: it is supports a style of play where a variety of new and improved abilities are gained regularly during the game. (One could make the argument that one doesn't have to play d20 that way, that one could create fifth-level characters and just play those with no advancement, but if so, then there's really no compelling reason to use d20 any longer.)

Another area is game balance. What "balance" exists in Traveller comes from aging - older characters usually have more skills and skill levels but may pay a price in diminished physical attributes - and from the character's Intelligence and Education attributes, which impose a hard limit on advancing skills and skill levels. However, characters with wildly divergent skills and attributes are the norm, not the exception, in Traveller - in actual play very little about character mechanics is "balanced" in this regard. In d20, characters are very carefully balanced relative to one another, and as such the system is poorly suited to creating the kinds of adventuring parties which are part-and-parcel of Traveller.

T20 is a brave but fatally flawed effort because the base mechanics and assumptions are poorly suited to the those of the original. When I decided I wanted to start a Traveller game again, I considered using both d20 Future and Traveller20 and discarded both, because neither captured the feel of play that I wanted. I wouldn't use D&D to play in the Warhammer universe for the same reason: d20 doesn't capture the quirky and engaging characters and character creation process that I enjoy about WFRP.

 

[Psion]

Except the G is shoddily implemented. For starters, most tabletop RPGs don't even have victory conditions.

Yeah, that explains why that silly "SIMS" game series is an absolute bust.

Oh, wait...

 

[buzz]

Yeah, that explains why that silly "SIMS" game series is an absolute bust.

Nitpick: The Sims isn't a game. It's a toy. It has no victory conditions for the same reason Play-Doh and Erector Sets have no victory conditions.

 

[Garnfellow]

Nitpick: The Sims isn't a game. It's a toy. It has no victory conditions for the same reason Play-Doh and Erector Sets have no victory conditions.

Nitpick of a nitpick: What are the victory conditions of a role-playing game?

 

[buzz]

Nitpick of a nitpick: What are the victory conditions of a role-playing game?

It depends on what game you're talking about.

In D&D, it's surviving the dungeon, whuppin' the BBEG, taking the loot, and leveling up. PC death is losing. Tunnels & Trolls is basically the same setup, but more explicit; the game text literally says that every time you make it out of the dungeon alive, you "win". New-school games like Donjon and Agon are quite similar, iirc. I'd probably throw in Burning Empires as well, as the Infection mechanics definitively let you know whether the humans or the Vaylen have won a campaign phase.

But, these are RPGs where the "G" is the focus (or "a" focus). In some games, the "RP" is the focus (exploring the game world, exploring your PC, etc.), and thus don't really have victory conditions. E.g., in Call of Cthulhu, you know your PC will likely end up dead or insane. The fun is in seeing how he gets there.

 

[Toben the Many]

This is an interesting question because it says literally, "ditch the d20 system."

There's a possibility that you start up a company not ever have been in the d20 system at all. Pinnacle comes to mind, with their start up of Deadlands. AEG's 7th Sea also comes to mind.

From what I've seen, if you make non-d20 system that is going to be successful, it has to tap into some kind of gamer-culture zeitgeist. Look at Vampire, Deadlands, 7th Sea, Shadowrun, and Call of Cthulu. Each one of these games tapped into a unique vision that make people wake up and take notice. Each time, when they came out, gamers said to themselves, "Ooooo. Cool." Instead of saying, "Um. Okay. Weird." They actually tapped into a brand new market and forged new territory.

In the case of Privateer Press, their d20 system stuff has indeed been weak on the crunch side. Their setting, of course, has been great. Nominations for Ennies and all. However, their Warmachine miniature system is pretty outstanding. The rules for that system are very nice. I could see them creating their own system as an outgrowth of their miniature system. Their steam-punk universe, I think, has captured enough zeitgeist that they would be able to pull it off.

 

[woodelf]

Some view the G as the essential part of RPG.

joe b.

If it's the essential part, then Monopoly is an RPG. Now, you want to make an argument that, without the game elements, it's "just roleplaying" or "just storytelling", i can see that. But we're definitely into the slippery territory of "is The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen an RPG?", as opposed to wondering whether Chess is. Without the roleplaying elements, whatever it is, it's not an RPG, whether or not it's a game. Without the game elements, it's at least something people argue about. So, i'll stick with the notion that the RPing is the essential element